When I heard I was having a girl, I was over the moon. After enduring hyperemesis gravidarum, I wasn’t sure I would try for another pregnancy. In my experience as the youngest of four girls, I know “girls” and always saw that women never left their families. A daughter would surely stick by my side through life! I had hidden my gender excitement from my husband (ex-husband now) but was in ecstatic tears when the ultrasound tech gave us the news. A few weeks later, though, it sunk in.

I was having a girl.

Would my girl experience the same things I did as a girl? I won’t expound on these things, but let’s just say rape and other traumatic experiences. My mind mentally replayed scenarios from well over 15 years ago. Perhaps had it been a boy, maybe my mind wouldn’t have gone through fearful scenario after fearful scenario. To have those things happen to my daughter like it happened to me? Oh no.

Eventually, this fear subsided, and I was back to celebrating “team pink,” but with all of that said, my mind is already preparing for how I will talk to my daughter about sex. It won’t just be one talk. Sure, I’ll do the introductory “By the way, now it’s time for us to talk woman-to-woman about sex” thing in my formally informal way, but discussing sex isn’t a one-time thing. It’s a lifelong conversation.

For some reason, there’s this very bad stereotype that single or divorced moms are desperate, lonely, and dying for someone to take care of them. Yet I have never once heard someone claim this of a single or divorced dad.

After the state police and ambulance arrived and did all the required testing, the paramedic gave me the news: “Your blood pressure is perfect. Your EKG is fine. I believe you had a panic attack. Are you stressed or dealing with any life changes?”

Who, me? Stressed? Not me!

I’m supposed to be SuperDivorcedMom! I’m positive. I am nice to my ex-husband and rarely ever lose my cool with him. We are the model divorce.

When I started writing about my divorce, I did not realize how heated readers would be over my essays and I am writing about a pretty amicable divorce. I actually have to hold back from hugging my ex-husband sometimes. Sure, we fight, but I care about the guy and I’m a squishy and sweet person. Call me naïve (that goes back to my squishiness) and perhaps this is due to me being raised by married parents, but the amount of hate, bitterness and ugliness that comes out of total strangers after reading a one-thousand word essay from me on divorce was shocking.

There I was after 24 hours of labor, five hours of pushing, and a C-section looking like a whale.

No really–a whale.

Like “find me an ocean and toss me in” certifiable whale. I would have fit in just perfectly with the sea creatures, which was amazing considering I had hyperemesis gravidarum in pregnancy and didn’t touch maternity clothes until I was about eight months pregnant. I wore my wedding ring throughout the pregnancy, and I was never swollen once. People actually said I looked cute, and perhaps they weren’t even lying. But after being pumped with fluids after my epidural and during my C-section, I now resembled Moby Dick and was so utterly not cute. One of my original legs turned into about five legs. My hands were as swollen as a beast’s. I’m surprised I didn’t warble or speak whale but instead could utter strings of the English language.